


Woodn't It be Nice

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25468468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Hashirama runs in to an old friend unexpectedly and Tobirama - well. Tobirama would like to have a firm chat with life's manager. No way is it fair for any human being to lookthatdelicious.
Relationships: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 31
Kudos: 357
Collections: MadaTobi Week 2020





	Woodn't It be Nice

‘Just an old friend from middle school’ Hashirama had called him. Tobirama didn’t doubt that part, his brother had a habit of befriending every person that crossed his path by sheer force of will, but he found himself slightly upset that Hashirama hadn’t seen fit to warn him even a little bit before introducing him to the human wet dream known as Uchiha Madara.

Madara had, at one point, big plans to follow along with the dreams his family had for him to become some big business exec. Evidently those dreams had been cast aside at some point when he realized the high stress lifestyle was not how he wanted to spend his years. Tobirama didn’t really see how anyone went from business school to taking up a career in lumberjacking but he was hardly about to complain. Living in the deep woods and hauling trees for a living had clearly done wonders for Madara’s figure. 

And Tobirama  _ really _ wanted a piece of that.

It was truly unfair how good that man made tartan look considering how many times Tobirama had snuck in to his brother’s closet only to despair that such patterns still didn’t suit him. Also high up on his list of unfair things was the sheer mass of all that thick dark hair falling in wavy tangles and how utterly scrumptious he looked without, apparently, having yet discovered the socially accepted function of a hairbrush. Given time and a good keyboard Tobirama was sure he could have produced a thesis length paper on why he should be allowed to bury his hands in all that hair. Two on why he should be allowed to touch that chest.

Because  _ wow _ the  _ chest _ . With a rib cage the size and general shape of a barrel and a waist line built for standing his ground against at least a smaller sized tank, it was almost enough to distract Tobirama from the thick muscle outlines clearly visible under the flannel – almost, but not quite. If he looked any harder his eyes might actually fall out of his head but he couldn’t seem to stop or even convince his mouth to close. 

Using his mind to juxtapose the image of an ax over those stubby thick fingers, Tobirama swallowed hard and wondered how many people had tried to pick this man up with some sort of bad wood puns. And more importantly whether that would work for him too. He definitely had some wood sprouting up that he wouldn’t mind letting Madara take care of. 

“What do you think Tobi?”

“Glorious…”

“Right? I do have good ideas sometimes!”

“Huh?” He turned to find Hashirama beaming at him but his brother was already turning away without giving him a moment to clarify that he hadn’t actually been paying attention to the conversation. 

Clapping his old friend on both shoulders, Hashirama smiled so wide he nearly split his own face in half. “You’ll love staying at our house. And you’ll love sharing a room with Tobi!” 

“Wait, what!?” Maybe he shouldn’t have taken quite so much time to admire that chest. 

Hashirama laughed. “You didn’t think I’d make him sleep on the couch did you? Not when you have a perfectly good spare bed in your room!” 

“But that- that’s Itama’s bed. What if Itama comes home?” Growing up with four boys in the same house, each only a few years apart from the others, it still felt wasteful for all of them to sleep in separate rooms even now that they were older and Hashirama’s job at the hospital had paid for a much larger house. It didn’t matter that Tobirama had actually been getting a little lonely while their two younger brothers were off at university in another city. Extra space or not there was no way he would survive sleeping in the same room with Madara unless he was granted an hour or so of alone time first. And knowing his older brother’s enthusiasm for socializing that wasn’t likely to happen. 

“Itama called last night,” Hashirama reminded him with an absent smile. “He’s off this weekend with his roommate to some concert happening a city away from them. I would ask Madara to sleep in Kawarama’s room but he’s still not over that cold he’s been fighting all week. We wouldn’t want our guest to get sick!”

“Appreciated,” Madara grunted. 

Slightly panicked, Tobirama cast about in his mind for any other excuse he could think of. “What if I’ve caught it too? He'd still get sick.”

“Nonsense, Kawa hasn’t let anyone near him except the dog. Neither of us is sick.”

“I don’t know, Anija, I feel pretty warm.”

“Maybe because it’s like a hundred degrees out,” Hashirama laughed. “Come now, Tobi, if you keep saying stuff like that I’m going to think you don’t want Madara in your room!” 

One look at those massive flannel-clad arms and Tobirama quickly swallowed his next words. The man could probably crush his head without thought and as delicious as it was to imagine being caught between those biceps he was also quite fond of living. While his brother threw an arm around broad shoulders Tobirama forced his eyes to look elsewhere, contemplating the restless night ahead.

Thankfully for his sanity he was at least able to sit alone in the backseat on the drive back from the hotel Hashirama just happened to spot his old friend going in to. Madara sat up front and nodded or grunted along to the man’s endless chatter. The backseat was quiet, free of tempting muscles, and gave Tobirama all the room he needed to stretch his legs across the width of the car. He noted Madara stealing glances at him in the rearview mirror several times but it was hard to tell what expression might be hiding under that scruffy beard. The fact that it was apparently due to be shaved off at the first opportunity was probably one of the greatest tragedies this world had ever seen. 

As a history buff Tobirama felt particularly qualified to make that call. 

When Madara was finally encouraged to speak more than a word or two strung together he told them how he had come to be in town with no plans and nowhere to stay. Apparently his younger brother Izuna still lived in Konoha and he’d planned his vacation to make a surprise visit. Except he was the one surprised to discover the house locked, one of the neighbors calling over to him that the whole family had left on a vacation of their own just a few days before. 

“Good thing we caught you then!” Hashirama declared. “No point in spending money on a lonely hotel room for two weeks when you could be catching up with me! I can’t believe how little you’ve changed!” 

“Really?” Tobirama muttered under his breath. If Madara had looked like this back in middle school he definitely would have remembered a face like that. Puberty would no doubt have smacked him in the face several years earlier. 

After a slow blink Madara grunted, “Beard.” That was, apparently, all he had to say on the matter. 

Never before in his life had Tobirama been quite so grateful to arrive home as he was that day, spilling out of the car and heading for the door as if all the devils of hell were chasing him. He made it in to the kitchen with enough time to set the kettle boiling and slip back out towards his bedroom before the other two even made it inside. The planet earth itself would fall out of its heavenly rotation before he let Madara walk in and see the absolute mess he typically lived in, research notes strewn here and there, clothing left on the floor where it was shed after yet another twenty hour binge on the latest project. No one needed to know the shame of his bedroom during the months when Itama was gone.

Just as he kicked out a foot to steady a precarious stack of textbooks the door opened and Hashirama cheerfully invited their guest in to a room that wasn’t even his. Madara blinked around, eyes pausing on the one bed that had clearly not seen any recent use. 

“Hope you didn’t clean up or anything,” he said. “It’s just me.”

“Oh don’t worry, Tobi’s always really clean!” Hashirama chirped, oblivious to his brother’s uncomfortable shifting. 

“Right. Where can I drop this?” 

Madara held up the duffel he’d been carrying when they spotted him on the street. When told he could put it anywhere he liked it was tossed on the floor with little care, a sure sign there wasn’t anything too breakable inside. A moment later he seemed to think the better of his actions and asked where the bathroom was as he stepped across to riffle in one of the duffle’s pockets. 

As quickly as he had hurried to his own bedroom Tobirama was gone again just like that. The kettle should be going off any second and he was pretty sure if he stuck around for Madara to come out of the shower all damp and delicious and possibly half naked - well, suffice to say the police probably wouldn’t accept any of the excuses running through his mind just then. 

Like it always did, a large hot cup of tea helped to settle him in his skin, leaving him feeling much more in control of his own reactions by the time Hashirama came back downstairs. His brother gave vent to a gusty contented sigh while he poured a cup for himself. 

“It’s hard to believe Uchiha Madara of all people is upstairs in my home!” he said. “Honestly I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. But, isn’t it funny, i was just thinking about him the other day!”

“Whatever keeps you going when Mito tells you to bite the pillow,” Tobirama murmured. 

“No! Ew! It’s not- hey! She doesn’t make me do anything like that!” Hot tea sloshed all over the counter as Hashirama slammed his cup back down and bent double to gag exaggeratedly. Sometimes it was hard to believe he had failed drama in highschool what with all the dramatics he filled every day with. 

Tobirama let the poor idiot catch his breath a little before daring to ask, “He taking a shower before dinner?”

“Um, I guess so. He didn’t say. What would you like to eat?”

Dinner - fish, of course, since the choice was left to him - was about as quiet as meals in their house ever got with Hashirama chattering endlessly. Amazingly Madara actually seemed to be listening to it all, nodding in the right places or humming in tandem with Tobirama whenever it was needed. It was nearly impossible to tell what was actually going on in his mind and Tobirama hated himself just a little for being so desperately intrigued by it. He’d never loved anything more than puzzles, taking things apart to see what made them tick, digging and digging until he ran out of questions to answer. People like Madara were exactly the sort of rare person who were able to hold his attention. 

Even more so since their guest came down for the evening meal with a clean shaven face, dark shaggy beard sacrificed to the waste bin upstairs, and Tobirama came to the horrifying conclusion that it needed to be glued back in place as soon as possible. Surely it had to be illegal for any human being to walk around looking as delicious as this. It wasn’t fair.

Under normal circumstances he would have said that going to bed was a relief, being allowed to crawl between familiar sheets and allow the privacy of his own room to unclench the tensions in his body. With Madara stumping in to the room after him he knew that he had nothing to look forward to but a few hours of restlessness until he gave in and snuck off to shame himself in the bathroom down the hall. Itama’s ancient bedframe gave a mighty creak the first time its new resident sat down. Normally it bore a much lighter load than all the rippling muscles clinging to Madara’s frame but it held up alright and the two of them were able to lay their heads down with goodnights murmured in to the darkness. 

Tobirama lasted only an hour and a half. He really hoped the other man only thought he was getting up to pee. 

During the day things weren’t so bad. For the most part Madara spent his time with Hashirama getting dragged from one end of the city to the other to re-experience all the things they had done in their childhood together. It was actually somewhat of a relief not to be the center of his brother’s attention for a while, left blissfully alone to work on his research and occasionally greet the ghost of Kawarama whenever he ambled past for food or water before holing up again. With one sibling down for the count and the other away for university the task of indulging Hashirama’s ceaseless energy had fallen entirely to him and it wasn’t until he was finally able to be productive again that he realized just how little he’d been getting done lately. 

Even meal times weren’t too terrible if he kept his eyes on his food instead of the tasty meal he would rather be having across the table. It was the evenings when he truly suffered. Getting Madara to come out of his shell and actually engage in conversation had taken a couple days, out of practice as he was from spending most of the few years quietly knocking and hauling lumber, but once he finally opened his mouth long enough to say more than two words together Tobirama was exasperated to discover a mind as beautiful as his face. Was there any way this man wasn’t perfect for him? The universe must be having a grand laugh at him, that was the only explanation he could think of. 

Still, as much havoc as it wreaked on his libido it was wonderful to have someone else to converse with who could actually keep up with him. Madara understood the basic concepts of his research, asked intelligent questions, even offered a few philosophical insights that Tobirama himself hadn’t thought of. If he didn’t want the man in his bed so badly it hurt he might have been tempted to offer him a job as a research assistant. 

He saw the signs coming from a mile away of course. Stopping it was impossible, though he still gave it the old college try. Catching feelings for his brother’s friend, a man who was only in town for a few weeks and then would likely never be back again, was probably one of the stupider things he had ever done. Tobirama wanted to be mad at the idiot for not just being a pretty face he could seduce and then let go of but it wasn’t like it was Madara’s fault that he checked every box on a lonely albino’s list. He probably wasn’t even aware of how tempting he was. Tobirama really hoped the poor man hadn’t noticed all the drooling and staring and whatnot. 

For a little over two weeks things went on like that, so close and yet so far, sleeping in the same room and slipping away to the bathroom for a while just to get himself to sleep. Even as a teenager his body hadn’t ruled him this much. If their family hadn’t been raised to be so frugal it was entirely possible that nothing would have changed, that they would have parted ways as nothing more than a what-if. But Itama loved that old bed no matter how it creaked and groaned and so none of them had ever thought of replacing the ancient thing until one night Madara flopped down on to the mattress and with a loud protest the entire frame shattered underneath him. Almost more shocking that that was the indignant squawk that gurgled up his throat, so unlike the smooth deep baritone he usually spoke in. Tobirama could do nothing but stare from where he stood halfway through the motion of getting up, one arm outstretched, and try to process what had just happened. Apparently all that muscle was too much for the bed to handle. 

He could relate.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Madara blinked up from the center of the now very lumpy looking mattress.

“I’ve been better.”

“You didn’t hurt anything did you?”

“No. Well, I think I hurt the bed.” With a groan he rolled off the mess and stumbled to his feet where he stood looking down with a wry expression. “I’ll pay for that.”

Money was not exactly the most pressing concern on Tobirama’s mind at the moment. “That, ah, is that just some of the frame pressing up from underneath?”

Praying to all of his ancestors that the mattress was still usable even if it had to rest on the floor, he watched the other man haul the entire thing up with one hand like it weighed no more than a feather and tried not to whimper. With no light but the moonbeams twisting around the curtains it was easy to see there was nothing directly under the mattress that would make such shapes. 

“Bunch’a springs broke under the pressure, I think,” Madara concluded. When he let the whole thing drop back down it did so with a muffled thud much like Tobirama’s heart inside his chest. “Guess I won’t be sleeping there anymore.”

“Not unless you want metal springs digging in to your spine all night long.”

Madara nodded slowly. “Couch it is, then.” 

“I don’t think that’s going to be an option,” Tobirama reluctantly called the man back before he could get halfway to the door. He tried not to be obvious about cringing when Madara turned to pin him in place with dark eyes turned obsidian by the shadows around them.

“Why not?” 

“You’ve been here an entire week and I’ve never once seen you sit comfortably on the sofa. It’s just not built to hold someone of your...stature.”

For the space of three heartbeats Madara did nothing but stare and blink. Then he sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose with one hand because it was true. Hashirama had bought most of their living room furniture for his tiny wife and his three whipcord thin brothers; he himself preferred to disappear in to the single cushy armchair that could actually hold his tall frame. If Madara went to go sleep on either of the two couches he would probably roll off the first time he tried to take a full breath in. 

Genius that he was, Tobirama had already done the calculations. He already knew what doom was about to fall upon him. In their house there were four beds for four people and two couches. One of those beds already had two people in it, Mito quietly arriving home from her work trip earlier that evening. Another contained one highly contagious whiny Kawarama and stank of dog after several days of the two curled up together in it. Now the third bed had collapsed, frame and mattress and all, leaving only one other place left as an option for sleeping.

Tobirama squirmed. Why had he ever thought it was necessary to buy such a roomy bed? He was only one person, surely a twin mattress would have held him and saved him from eyeing the several feet of unused space at his side with defeat in his bones. It was this or ask Madara to sleep on the floor. 

“So if I can’t sleep on the couches then where the hell am I supposed to sleep?” He even eyed the carpet as though wondering whether it was plush enough to let him get some rest but one night wasn’t the problem. Laying flat out on the ground for several days in a row would do murder on anyone’s back and just because his job left him in the wilds for months at a time didn’t mean he had to play at camping even in his off time. 

“I’ve got room here,” Tobirama forced himself to say.

“You don’t have any sort of air mattress or anything?” 

“Not anymore, no. Our dog got in to the closet and chewed them all last summer.” 

He watched the other man nodding slowly, a small frown drawing his brows together, and wondered if the option was really so detestable to consider. The offer was on the tip of his tongue to ask if Mito would share a bed with him instead for a few days so Madara could rest beside the friend he had much better reason to trust but the words never had a chance to be spoken. 

“You don’t kick or anything, do you?” 

“No,” he murmured, hardly daring to breathe. 

“Right.” 

Then Madara snatched up the same pillow he’d been using for the last couple weeks since Tobirama only had the one on his own bed and stumped across the room with all the grace of a bear. As unsexy as that image was Tobirama still managed to find his thoughts in the gutter, privately thinking that he wouldn’t mind taking up bear wrestling if this was his opponent. 

Somehow he managed to keep such thoughts to himself as the mattress dipped to accommodate more than double the weight it was used to. Convincing the anatomy inside his trousers that it was not Go Time was a little more difficult to do. Tobirama carefully rolled on to the side facing away from his new bed partner; at least in this position he was only tenting his own clothing rather than the bedding as well. Nothing could possibly make his desires more obvious. After a moment’s pause he felt Madara shifting around and finding a position to settle in to as well, hopefully facing away from him though he couldn’t exactly see what was going on. When the movement finally stopped he cleared his throat. 

“Night,” he mumbled awkwardly. Madara grunted, which he had learned was about the equivalent of him saying it back. 

In the silence that followed Tobirama dearly regretted leaving the curtains cracked. Just that small amount of light made shadows on the wall for him to trace with his eyes and glare at as though they were the source of all his problems. If there were shadows on the wall that meant there was enough light for Madara to see if he threw back the covers and tried to escape to the bathroom. Not to mention that it would be much harder to sneak off even after the man had fallen asleep when there was a chance any shifting of the mattress could wake him again and alert him to Tobirama’s nightly embarrassment. 

He smothered a groan and curled a little tighter in to himself. Sleep was an impossibility when all he wanted was relief and there didn’t seem like a safe way to achieve that with the source of all his delicious miseries lying so close. It seemed he was doomed to simply lie here while his balls turned bluer and bluer. 

“Alright?” The word rumbled low in the space between them and Tobirama nearly leapt out of his skin. 

“What?”

“If you’re not feeling good I don’t want to catch anything.”

Clenching his fists he grumbled, “I’m not sick.”

“Seems like you’re not alright though,” his companion mused. 

“Oh and how would you know?”

A beat passed before Madara answered. When he did his tone sounded almost hesitant in a strange way. “You don’t usually sleep all curled up in a ball. Is it your stomach? Maybe dinner doesn’t agree with you.” 

Pausing in his prayers for death to take him in a localized strike of lightning, Tobirama frowned in to the darkness. It wasn’t such an unusual question - or it wouldn’t have been if they had known each other for any appropriate length of time. He struggled over whether or not to say something until finally his curiosity couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Do you...watch me sleep?”

Choking sounds accompanied the sudden brush of air against the back of his neck, startling enough that he instinctively shot up on to one elbow so he could twist around. There he was greeted with the sight of Madara spluttering and cutting his way through several disconnected syllables. It was hard to parse which part of the scene before him was the most shocking, the fact that Madara was quite obviously embarrassed or the fact that he had apparently settled down to sleep facing the center of the bed rather than away towards the wall. 

“I’m just...observant!” He finally managed to choke out. 

“While we’re both lying down on opposite sides of the room you somehow manage to observe my position every night when your eyes are supposed to be closed?” 

Madara flushed visibly. “I have trouble sleeping a lot. Sometimes I sit up for a while!” 

Fascinating as it was to see a new flustered side to such a composed man of so few words, Tobirama couldn’t truly enjoy this rare opportunity when he was distracted with yet another devastating revelation. 

“How long does it usually take you to get to sleep?” he whispered. 

“A couple hours.” The words had already passed the man’s lips before Madara seemed to realize what he had just given away.

“Oh.”

The two of them stared at each other, wide eyed and silent, as they both processed what the other now knew. If Madara was awake each night long enough to observe what position Tobirama fell asleep in then he was awake each night to observe him slipping out of bed and down the hall for much longer than one would need for a simple nightly piddle. He knew. And he hadn’t said anything. 

“It’s not every day,” Tobirama blurted without thinking. “I’m not some kind of obsessed nymphomaniac or anything.”

“Right.”

“I’m not!”

“Okay. So. Is it just...me then?” 

The twitch in his pants said yes but the flaming heat in his face, well, that probably also said yes despite what he would have preferred. All the genius in the world couldn’t help him think his way out of this particular spot, lying in the same bed with a man he could already feel himself developing very ill advised feelings for while that very man stared back at him processing the knowledge that he was very interested in taking up certain physical activities together. What would Hashirama do, he wondered, if he woke up tomorrow morning to discover that his little brother had been smothered to death by those glorious and very strong biceps?

“Didn’t mention it to your brother yet,” Madara finally spoke again. “Wanted Izuna’s opinion on the idea first. But I’ve been thinking about moving back in to town lately. I got a job offer at one of the factories.” 

“O-oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Think maybe you’d want to grab a coffee or something sometime?” Somehow the man was able to project both flawless confidence and an adorably unexpected shyness at the same time.

Tobirama nearly swallowed his own tongue trying to rein in his own frantic nodding. “I’d like that.” 

“Good, good.”

All plans for throwing himself off the edge of the earth were put on hold. How the hell he had missed his dream hunk returning any sort of interest was beyond him but the last thing he would be doing was complain about it. Who was he to say no when being handed everything he thought he couldn’t have? All wrapped up in a pretty package with gorgeous unruly hair, naturally pouty lips, and thighs he would be happy to have his head crushed between. Whatever small fragment of the universe had taken pity on him deserved a massive ethereal fruit basket in thanks for giving him this. 

“You wanna make out?” Madara cut in to his thoughts. “Or do we need to wait for that first date?”

“Now is good,” Tobirama breathed, already twisting the lower half of his body to face inwards as well. Maybe later he could take the time to be ashamed of his own enthusiasm but right now he had an entire beefcake to throw himself on and judging by the appreciative moan that greeted him it didn’t seem like Madara had any problems with that. 

He had already managed to roll himself on top of this woodsman adonis and gasp at the stretch in his thighs for how wide they had to open just to sit astride those hips when he paused, pulling away from quite possibly the most mind-bending kiss he’d ever experienced in his life.

“What’s your opinion on wood puns?” he mumbled. 

“I will kill you,” Madara replied with absolutely no inflection. 

“Noted. Can I wear your shirt tomorrow?” 

“You would look absolutely terrible in tartan.” One dark eyebrow lifted slowly, something like hunger gathering in the man’s eyes. “Sure.” 

Tobirama shivered and decided if he said anything else he would probably spill every dirty possessive thought his brain had ever come up with. It was much safer to dive in again and tremble under the feeling of large hands curling around his bottom. 

Maybe -  _ maybe _ \- he was glad that Hashirama had decided to take a different route home that day and happened to spot his old friend. A reward this good was definitely worth the torture of thinking it was all beyond his reach, that he would suffer through the stages of falling in love and then be forced to ssay goodbye when Madara left, to never see the man again. Whatever it took to convince him that moving back in to town was a good plan he would do it. Even if he had to track down this Izuna fellow himself and beg on his knees for a little support. 

For now the only thing he planned to do on his knees was moan, however. Possibly beg. That depended entirely on how far Madara was willing to go before they even made it out for a simple coffee or discussed anything between them with any sort of depth.

Whatever the case, he just really hoped his brother was well and truly asleep down the hall because he had zero plans for staying quiet after finally getting his hands on such a perfect dream. 


End file.
